Carmen Calvo

CARMEN CALVO (Valencia, 1950).
"It was an inner sea where it ended", 2004.
Mixed media and collage on paper.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 76 x 56 cm; 94 x 74 cm (frame).
The transgressive character and at the same time full of a great poetic charge of Carmen Calvo can be appreciated in each of her works that link with the image of order and accumulation associated with the artist. One of the passions of the artist Carmen Calvo is to stroll through flea markets and leaf through old albums in search of old photographs to intervene, thus offering a renewed vision of the ancient anonymous snapshots taken in the past. Unknown characters, often in group photographs, transform their identity through the inclusion of masks and other surreal elements.
Carmen Calvo studied at the Schools of Arts and Crafts and Fine Arts in Valencia, and graduated in advertising in 1970. She would later broaden her training thanks to scholarships from the Ministry of Culture (1980), the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid (1983-85) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for her residence in Paris (1985-92). During these years Calvo began to be recognized, receiving distinctions such as the I LaSalle Seiko Painting Prize of Barcelona (1985), the Alfons Roig of the Diputación Valenciana (1989), a scholarship in the I Biennial Martínez Guerricabeitia of the University of Valencia (1989), and the selection for the XLVII Biennial of Venice (1997). The artist had begun her exhibition activity in 1969, taking part in a group show held at the Círculo Universitario de Valencia. She made her individual debut in 1976 at the Temps gallery in her native city, and since then she has shown her work individually in various cities in Spain and the United States, as well as in other countries in Europe, America and Africa. Works by Carmen Calvo can currently be seen in art institutions, museums and private collections all over the world, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Marugame Hirai in Kobe, the MACBA in Barcelona, the Fonds National d'Art Contemporain in Paris, the IVAM in Valencia, the Chase Manhattan Bank collection in New York, etc.